


drive me there

by djhedy



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe, Cat, M/M, Mental Health Issues, POV Neil Josten, Yep that's it, andrew minyard is a life coach, comedy? sure, dumb? yep, i have no idea what tags to add, life coach, pining? probably, she's called Button, we will see
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:33:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23067049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/djhedy/pseuds/djhedy
Summary: Neil lifts his head off the arm of the sofa. It’s only Matt, wrestling bags through the front door, so he flops again, turns the volume of the tv up, squints at it.“What are you watching?”“People buying houses,” Neil says confidently.“Sounds like a hoot.” Neil turns the volume off and listens to Matt putting groceries away in the kitchen for a while.“What did you do today?”Neil looks at his watch. “It’s only 2pm.”“Uh… what’s your point?”Neil shrugs into the sofa. He’s only been awake an hour but doesn’t want to tell Matt that.-or: the one where matt makes neil call a life coach
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 17
Kudos: 146





	drive me there

**Author's Note:**

> hi :) this was a stupid idea i came up with today, so it'll probably be short and dumb, but hope you like it anyway x

Neil lifts his head off the arm of the sofa. It’s only Matt, wrestling bags through the front door, so he flops again, turns the volume of the tv up, squints at it.

“What are you watching?”

“People buying houses,” Neil says confidently.

“Sounds like a hoot.” Neil turns the volume off and listens to Matt putting groceries away in the kitchen for a while. 

“What did you do today?”

Neil looks at his watch. “It’s only 2pm.”

“Uh… what’s your point?”

Neil shrugs into the sofa. He’s only been awake an hour but doesn’t want to tell Matt that.

He can hear Matt’s sigh from the kitchen. “Dude,” he calls, “you need a routine.”

“My routine is _fine_ ,” Neil insists, picking a stray cat from off the floor, just in case the floor is made of lava, and cuddling her into his chest. “Hey Button,” he whispers as the ginger cat nudges her face into him.

“You don’t have a routine,” Matt says, appearing a few minutes later with a plate of sandwiches. He places them on the coffee table and sits cross-legged on the floor. Matt waves at the apartment. “You have a cat, and an idiot of a best friend who brings you food _even though he doesn’t live here_.”

“So don’t,” says Neil, feeling irritated. “No one asked you to.”

Matt ignores this. He holds a sandwich with one hand, chewing aggressively, and reaches into his pocket with the other. Neil picks up a sandwich from the plate, feeling resentful and hungry all at once. Hunger wins out and he stuffs it into his mouth. Matt holds up a business card.

Neil sits up a little more properly, brings Button and the sandwich with him, and says, “What.” 

“Saw this at the store. Life coach.” Matt flicks the card at Neil and they both watch it bounce off his chest, Button scrabbling her claws at it. It lands on the floor. “You need help.”

Neil rolls his eyes. “I’m fine.”

Matt immediately lifts himself off the ground, stomps over to the _I’m fine_ jar, takes a dollar out of it, shoves it in his pocket, and returns to his seat.

“Drama queen,” mutters Neil. Matt had filled the jar himself, he'd used Neil’s bank card to withdraw two hundred dollars in one dollar bills. The jar is only half-full now.

“You take years off my life,” Matt says, grinning now, “might as well make money off it.”

They eat in silence for a bit until Matt moves himself onto an armchair, turns the volume up so that they can both watch _and_ listen to people buying houses. Button jumps onto the coffee table and follows a patch of sunlight for a while, in turn swatting at it and curling up in it.

“I’m worried about you, man,” Matt finally says. Neil turns his body towards him, fully prepared to listen and then ignore him entirely. “I wish you would see someone.”

“A life coach,” Neil says.

“Well the therapist suggestion never goes over well.”

“I don’t need therapy.”

“You need direction.”

Neil glares at Matt. “You ever wondered if actually you’re just a terrible friend who won’t let me just eat shitty food and stay home and never exercise or get a job?”

Matt smiles. “Yes, I’m a terrible friend. Call the life coach.”

When Matt leaves Neil picks up the business card from the floor and pins it to his board of important things: Matt and Dan’s wedding invitation; a postcard from the two of them with a picture of a fox on it; a photo of a really tiny Button when Neil had first brought her home. He reads the name _Andrew Minyard, Life Coach,_ picks up Button, goes to bed, and promptly forgets about it for two weeks.

He spends his two weeks well, he thinks. He and Button have a nice routine where they get up, eat, nap, watch tv, nap, eat, go to bed. He’s doing a mathematics course online, that sometimes he gets round to. Despite what Matt implies he’s not useless. He cleans. Listens to the radio. Sings along badly to songs he half-knows while sitting on the floor of the bathroom, cloth in one hand, wiping at anything in reach while Button chases the cleaning spray and rolls around on clean tiles.

Two weeks later Matt slams open the front door, picks up Neil’s phone off the coffee table, marches over to the board of important things and dials a number. Neil’s only just registered that he needs to intervene when Matt says into the phone, “Yeah, is this Andrew?”

Neil sits up, blankets and Button falling away from him in protest. “Matt, what the hell?”

Matt is faced away from him. “I - well, my _friend_ , could do with some life coaching.” He pauses. “No, this isn’t a joke. … Neil.”

Neil stands up. “Give me my phone back.”

“Sure, what time?” Matt scribbles something on the back of an envelope, pins the envelope to the board of important things, smiles at Neil and says into the phone. “We’ll see you then.” He hangs up, chucks the phone at Neil and storms out of his apartment. Neil, phone in hand, frowns at the board where Matt’s written, “ _The Coffee Bean on East Street, tomorrow, 3pm. Be there or I put more money in the fucking jar.”_

Neil wakes up at midday, Button with one paw on his face. He stretches, ruffles a hand over her head, and gets up so they can make breakfast together. It isn’t until 2pm that he remembers Matt’s threat. He looks over at his jar with concern. It’s not that he doesn’t have very much money. In fact he has quite a lot. But he doesn’t like to see it wasted. Hates to spend it at all. He sighs, picks up Button, and they head to the bathroom to shower.

Neil can’t remember the last time he went outside. He thinks maybe a few weeks ago, for Dan’s birthday. He’d gone to their apartment and sat in a corner of the room for an hour before leaving. There had been a lot of people there, a lot of alcohol and jokes he didn’t understand. He thinks maybe that was a few weeks ago. Maybe a month.

He pulls a beanie over his head and stuffs his hands in his pockets and looks back at Button. “Sorry, I don’t think I can bring you.” Button miaows at him. He considers it one more time. “No I really don’t think I can.” Closes the door behind him, and leaves.

Outside is bright and warm and - ok maybe the beanie is overkill but he hates his stupid messy hair that he can never get right, and the jacket has high collars so he can hide his face. East Street isn’t far, he’d looked it up online before he left. Only a few blocks away. He hopes Matt is going to be there. Takes his phone out his pocket and dials his number.

Matt answers with, “Don’t you dare cancel, Neil. I mean it.”

“I’m on my way,” Neil says.

“Oh. Well. Good.”

“Are you coming too?”

There’s a pause, and a sigh, and Matt says, a bit gentler now, “Of course I am. Had to make sure you actually showed, didn’t I?”

Neil smiles into the phone, aware Matt can’t see it, and hangs up.

But Neil arrives before Matt, and doesn’t know what this Andrew Minyard looks like, so he stands outside, leans against the wall, watches people walking past and burrows his face a little further into his jacket when one person stares at him a little too long.

Matt arrives a couple of minutes later with a beam on his face. “Coffee?”

Neil pushes the door open and they walk in. “What else,” he mutters.

Matt orders a black coffee and a latte, and looks around. “Do you think he’s here?”

Neil looks too. There are a few groups, a few couples, one woman with a laptop typing furiously, and in the corner by the window, a man with a shock of blond hair and a book in one hand.

“I bet that’s him,” Matt says.

“I bet it isn’t,” Neil says.

“Come on.”

“Let’s just go. This is stupid.”

“Come _on_.”

Matt picks up their coffees and walks over to the man, and Neil follows reluctantly. “Sorry to bother you, are you Andrew Minyard?”

The man doesn’t look up immediately, stares at his book for a few more seconds, and then looks up, sees Matt with Neil standing cautiously behind him, and nods.

“Great!” says Matt, putting their coffees down and dragging a third chair over. He sits down and Neil does too, but he doesn’t look at the guy. Cradles his coffee in his hand and glares at the table.

“That must be Neil,” the guy says.

That makes Neil look up. “I’m not a _that_.”

“It speaks,” Andrew says, amusement in his voice but face as blank as it had been when they’d arrived.

“This is Neil,” Matt says, “and I’m Matt.”

“Ah,” says Andrew. “The boyfriend?”

Neil rolls his eyes. “The interfering friend.”

“I see.” Neil finally looks at Andrew and feels horribly like he’s being assessed, Andrew’s eyes giving him a quick once over before turning back to Matt.

“What’s wrong with him?”

Neil almost chokes.

“He has no routine,” says Matt, barrelling straight into it before Neil can get a word in. “He doesn’t work, he doesn’t exercise, he barely leaves the house at all. He only eats vegetables because I hide them in things.”

Neil narrows his eyes at him. “Like what?”

Matt takes a sip of his latte and looks out the window. “I’d rather not say.”

“So what do you want me to do about it?” says Andrew, fingers itching towards his book, like a threat.

Matt looks at Andrew. “You’re a life coach. I don’t know, fix him.”

Andrew glances at Neil. “That is not really how life coaching works. It’s more like therapy -”

Neil stands abruptly but Matt had already placed one hand on his shoulder and pushes him back into his chair. “Sorry about this one,” he says to Andrew, “he’s a bit of a flight risk.”

“I see.”

“I’m _not_ I just don’t need _therapy_ ,” Neil tries to protest, but it’s as if he isn’t even there.

“Listen,” says Matt, spreading his hands out, “I think what he needs is someone to come up with a routine for him and make sure he sticks to it. Just for a couple of weeks.” That is not at all what Neil had signed up to. “Do you do that?”

“Hmm.” The man - Andrew - taps his fingers on the table, looking incredibly bored, but eyes still flicking over to Neil occasionally. “That will be expensive.”

“He can afford it.”

“Interesting,” says Andrew, not sounded interested at all.

“Stop spending my money,” Neil says, feeling desperate now, like this is a thing that’s going to happen to him and he isn’t sure how to stop it.

They sit in silence for a bit, and Neil wonders if he can just run back to his apartment, lock the door. He’d need to take Matt’s keys away first. But then Matt would stop bringing food round. Maybe he could - 

“Ok.”

Neil looks at Matt, the beginnings of a beam on his face. Matt says, “Ok?”

Andrew looks at Neil. “Why not.”


End file.
